17 June 2017

SEOUL, June 16 (Yonhap) -- North Korea announced Friday that it will accelerate efforts to bolster its nuclear arsenal to counter the U.S.-led "hostility" highlighted by a wide web of sanctions on the communist regime.

In a press statement, the North's Foreign Ministry gave a detailed account of the decades-long sanctions it faces for a series of nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches.

"The despicable sanctions and pressure imposed on the DPRK by the U.S. and its vassal forces have reached the extreme," it said, using the acronym for the nation's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

It's an "outcome of the extremely hostile policy of the U.S.," it argued.

The Donald Trump administration has been pushing for "maximum pressure" on Pyongyang with the primary goal of resolving the North Korea issue through dialogue rather than the use of force.

In addition to sanctions under the U.N. Security Council resolutions, the North said, the U.S. continues to invent different kinds of its own punitive measures, even targeting its "supreme dignity."